On screen he’s romanced many of the most beautiful women in the world.

Halle Berry, Meryl Streep, Salma Hayek and Rosamund Pike are just a few to have starred opposite Pierce Brosnan.

But the former James Bond star only has eyes for wife Keely.

“She is the most beautiful woman and someone who has been my North Star for many a day and a year now. We just celebrated 19 years of life together,” he says.

And Keely is not phased by her husband’s onscreen liaisons.

“She calls it ‘legal cheating’,” he smiles. “My wife is very cool.

“She has a great sense of humour about it, a great sense of who she is as a woman and security and faith within me.”

The pair met in 1994 when the former journalist interviewed him, and they tied the knot in Ireland seven years later.

A grief-stricken Brosnan had sworn never to marry again after losing first wife Cassandra to ovarian cancer three years earlier in 1991, when she was just 43.

It was her who pushed him to go to Hollywood. That move landed him the starring role in the detective series Remington Steele from 1982 and which ultimately led to him playing 007 in four Bond films.

The memories of this heart-breaking period in his life, when he was left to bring up their eight year-old son Sean, undoubtedly came flooding back, while making his latest movie, Danish romantic comedy Love Is All You Need.

Brosnan gives an acclaimed performance as heartbroken widower and father-of-one Philip, whose life changes after he meets cancer survivor Ida.

Brosnan says: “As a man who has gone through the rigours of loss and dealing with family, I guess there was something there I could draw on.

“I know what it is like to be a widower and what it is like to find love again.

“So I know there’s hope and that you have to learn to get on with it. Ups and downs are what life is all about.

“But the memory of Cassie and her fight against cancer is never forgotten.

“You cannot escape your own life and the experiences, good and bad, when you play certain characters,” he says.

“Losing Cassie to cancer was part of the vocabulary of playing Philip. You draw upon your life when you create a character.”

And just as his character’s life changes in the film, Brosnan’s found meaning again with Keely.

“We met when I was like Philip, adrift. I’d lost my wife and been a widower for three years. Keely is the backbone of our family, of my life, and I tell her that I love her every day.

“I tell her that she’s beautiful and I couldn’t have done it without her.

“We look forward to the time now when the boys go off to college and my darling will be able to travel with me on these movies.”

He’s speaking from the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where the Irish-born star lives with American Keely and their sons Dylan, 16, and Paris, 12.

He’s just taken eight months out of the hectic film business to relax with his family here.

The couple rarely venture on to red carpets and have little to do with other Hollywood A-listers.

And while he can be mistaken for a good 15 years younger than a man who will turn 60 next month, recent pictures of Brosnan on the beach were less than flattering.

Pictured shirtless, it wasn’t the muscular physique of current Bond hunk Daniel Craig which came to mind, but the ageing figure of moobed TV mogul Simon Cowell

“Oh dear, poor Simon Cowell,” laughs Brosnan. “I’ve been living the life of Riley for the last eight months,” he goes on.

“I finished three movies back-to-back last year, so I’ve been at home with the family since October. It’s one of those lovely luxuries that come with hard work and good timing.

“We always wanted to get away so we found this place – it’s a small three-bedroom cottage that sits right on the water’s edge.

“This is the most magical place – life here is very beautiful and very simple. We have a beautiful Garden of Eden and the sea is at my feet. Keely is a gardener and I do my painting in my little grass hut on the beach – and look like Simon Cowell!”

The good life shows on Pierce, 59For Brosnan the biggest challenge in the new romantic drama Love Is All You Need, by Danish director Susanne Bier, was not the emotionally demanding part, but the language.

He was the only non-Danish-speaker in the cast.

“Danish is a very tricky language to get your tongue around, so to speak, and everyone speaks English,” he adds. “I only know ‘Du er smuk’, which means ‘you are beautiful’.”

“That’s a good one to learn,” he says, with a chuckle.

He adds: “The Danish actors were just so embracing of me. I was assured by Susanne that she would take care of me and she did.

“I think it’s warm and an embracing film. It has relevance, a healing quality and is a celebration of love, courage, strength and new beginnings.”

Whatever acting plaudits he gains, Brosnan’s seven-year stint as Bond in four films remains the one that people remember him for.

“That was, without a question, one of the most rewarding roles,” he admits. “That character, and the opportunities it gave one is the gift that keeps giving because once you’re a Bond, you’re a Bond for life.”

And despite earlier comments that he was disappointed about not making a fifth film, he has only compliments for Daniel Craig, saying: “Daniel is doing superbly well: a Bond for the day and the season.”

Brosnan has carved out a career for himself beyond his Bond days, having appeared in Dante’s Peak, Mamma Mia! and The Ghost.

He has also produced movies he starred in including The Thomas Crown Affair and The Matador.

Son Sean, 29, from his first marriage to Cassandra, has followed his dad’s footsteps into the acting world, and Brosnan admits the two younger boys probably will too, once they’ve finished school.

“The 12-year-old makes movies online and he’s about to start filming an adaptation with his brother,” he states proudly.

“It’s in the blood, it’s in the family. It’s fantastic.

“All we ask is that they get their grades, then they can go and do anything they jolly well please.”

Their privileged upbringing is a world away from his own childhood. Aged two he was abandoned by his father and left with his grandparents while his mother worked in London as a nurse.

After several years in a lodging house in Ireland, he finally joined his mum in Putney, South London, when he was 10. It was then that he saw his first Bond movie, Goldfinger, which inspired him to get into acting.

Brosnan will next star in Love Punch with Emma Thompson and the film adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel A Long Way Down.

“I’m hungry for work and I want to make more movies. That’s always a burning passion for me.

“I have smaller films I want to make, and one with Sean,” he says.

“I’ve been very lucky and very grateful to stay at the table for as long as I have. I seem to have employment, some hairline and some small piece of talent in the back pocket that I can polish.”